Monday, July 20, 2009

OK, so the post title is a little liberal with the truth, but our trip to Baltimore did yield 51 cents for the Sidewalker Fund. The purpose of the trip was to visit our good friend Captain Tinkerson, and his lovely wife Dr. Tinkerson. We were once again overwhelmed by the generosity of their hosting. However Cap'n Tinkerson comes from a long line of well decorated salty sea dogs, and it was hard to refuse his offer of a days sailing around the Inner Harbor on his barque, the good ship Spiller. The downside of this nautical extravaganza was the lack of coin finding opportunities on the open sea, so this took a real bite out of our predicted total for the trip. The highlight of the sail was when Sidewalker Jr. said, "Daddy there is a big boat behind us". To which I replied, "Don't be ridiculous son, we would...", just as five loud blasts from it's horn indicated we should move aside lest we get holed and sunk by the massive tugboat. I can confirm that Baltimore is still very much a working port!

The two most noticeable finds were the penny found in the demonstration of the steering mechanism on the pier next to the USS Constellation, and a quarter that Cap'n Tinkerson pointed out to us at the National Aquarium. I think he was trying to make up for the sailing debacle. Also Light Street was like a penny arcade, evidence of this can be seen in my Cash Trail Map in the side bar to the right, as I have plotted all the Baltimore finds already.

As we strolled around the inner harbor, I remarked to Cap'n Tinkerson that the local folk down here seem to dress real strange. After a raucous belly laugh befitting of his status as a "man of the sea", the Cap'n explained that Baltimore was hosting an Anime (Japanese cartoon characters) convention, and the fans like to dress up in the spirit of the event. My bad!

The picture above is a Sidewalker original of the transom of the USS Constellation, the restoration work done on this old Man O' War is quite exquisite. I would definitely recommend a visit if you are in the Baltimore Inner Harbor area. Likewise the Aquarium is a must see, and the dolphin show was a big hit with the kids.

So the window to claim my found Starbucks gift card has expired. Later this week we will explore the possibilities of how we are to proceed with this find.